Family, friends and supporters of 1st district supervisor candidate, Cheryl Seidner, invite the community to a Wiyot Taco fundraiser this Saturday, March 31st at the Wiyot Tribal Office on beautiful Table Bluff. Come enjoy traditional Wiyot Tacos, silent auction items, and a beautiful evening on the coast. We are asking for a $20 donation, but this is a sliding-scale evening as we want everyone to know that their support is welcomed and appreciated!

“Humboldt County must rise up to meet the challenges we face. We must work together to overcome our obstacles. We must create an inclusive community that puts its’ people first.”

Again, there are at least half a dozen ways to cheat on these polls, and even if nobody cheats or rallies to “freep” them, the polls are only an indication of the sentiments of those who read blogs and respond to polls – which may not be anywhere close to representative of voters as a whole. Moreover, I have no way of limiting the responses to the districts in question or even the county. To quote Brit Hume, these polls may be “indicative of something.” If that. I post them out of pure curiosity, and for discussion purposes.

What a difference half a century makes. After the Scopes Monkey Trial, politics had pretty much secularized in the mainstream, until the McCarthy era when political religion was revived in Cold War context and in response to growing culture mediums (rock music, radicals movie makers, etc.). JFK was under a particular pressure as the first (and only) Catholic President with concern over “Papicism” in terms of social democracy (Rerum Novarum specifically, which would figure prominently in the Second Vatican) more paranoid “apostate church” issues. This speech was probably designed to ease concerns that he had been elected as Pope-surrogate.

But for the most part, politics had secularized, until the emergence of the Moral Majority during the Reagan Revolution. Nobody objected to the the notion that a political figures core morality might be rooted in religion, but the concept of a religious political agenda driving electoral campaigns and policy was well out of vogue for two brief decades beginning with JFK. Does anybody remember Ford’s religion? Johnson’s? Some of us touched by anti-war politics might remember that Nixon had been a Quaker largely because of the irony of the situation, and the response from Quakers themselves. But until the 1980s, we really didn’t know our political leaders’ religious affiliations. Now even liberal pols are pretty much forced to proclaim their Christianity in personal and political terms, as the liberal pol’s bonafides on the issue are routinely challenged.

In any case, we certainly would not have seriously entertained proposals for “faith based” public funding of privatized social programs, or “vouchers” for public funding of religious education, or official prayer in schools. It was a brief renaissance in the approach to the Establishment Clause (and yes conservatives, I know that “wall of separation” only appeared in a private letter by Thomas Jefferson).

This speech would be attacked all over Fox News today, and even on the other stations.

A remarkable thing happened at Clif’s event last night, and it had nothing to do with the campaign or even politics. My daughter was playing with a friend of hers – my daughter is seven and her friend eight. There’s a little side room towards the rear of the Scotia Inn dining hall and the kids were allowed to leave the grown-up world of politics to enjoy themselves. At one point I decided to check up on them.

The story actually begins before last night. I had met her friend once before at Arts Alive a couple of months ago. She, my daughter, and two other girls were wowed as we veered as a group of parents and kids off of the main drag to visit artists in their studios – the first time I had ventured into those buildings during Arts Alive.

One of the artists had a studio jammed full of paintings, so much so that it’s actually hard to navigate. I was nervous as the four girls started running through the place because it would have been easy to fall or trip and ruin a painting or two, but the artist wasn’t even fazed. He called the girls over to him, gave them a little bit of a tour and lesson on what he does, and then gave each of them a small painting as a gift. The girls were, of course, wowed. My daughter proudly displays her painting on her dresser. But it’s not Lilith’s first piece of original art. Her friend, whose family doesn’t have a large amount of money, was even more profoundly affected by the gift.

Last night when I walked into the room she was resting from play and I asked her if she still had the painting. She nodded. I jokingly said, “well, maybe someday it will be worth some money.”

She actually turned and looked at me in response – spoke politely but emphatically, and without a contraction of I and ll, “I will never sell it! It was the first time I ever met a real artist.”

I don’t want to name the artist, because I don’t want him put on the spot to give other kids the same kind of gifts. He does have to make a living. But I intend to return to his studio and tell him the story. And buy one of his paintings.